Free I Loved a Rogue The Prince Catchers by Katharine Ashe

released her.
    Dragging her legs free of his coat, she scuttled back like a crab, scrabbled to her feet, and ran.
    Taliesin’s blood pounded, a tide he’d no power to control. He bent his head and stared at his empty hands.

 
    Chapter 6
The Whiskey

    S he couldn’t stop looking at him.
    Neither, apparently, could Betsy.
    “I don’t trust him, miss.” Brow crunched, Betsy shook her head and sipped tea.
    Beyond the window, on the cobbles just above the stones that bordered the beach, the stable boy led Taliesin’s great black horse to him. He took the reins and spoke to the boy for a moment. He had changed into dry clothes, and wore now both hat and greatcoat. Except for the silver rings in his ears, he looked like a gentleman. Earlier, on the beach, he had behaved like one. Until he hadn’t.
    “Why don’t you trust him?” Eleanor said a little breathlessly.
    “I saw how he stole your shoes.” Betsy glared through the window.
    “Then you also saw how he replaced them with his coat.”
    Betsy leveled her a challenging eye. “Has he given the shoes back to you, then?”
    “Well. No.” She hadn’t really given him opportunity. The wind on the beach had pressed the very fine shirt linen to his shoulders and arms, revealing muscles she’d been too naïve to even dream of. Then his big, strong hands had slipped from her feet up her calves, and she’d lost a little bit of her mind. “I thought perhaps he gave them to you.”
    Betsy wagged her head anew. “I’ve heard tell Oriental princes don’t let their womenfolk wear shoes. Their men like to keep them trapped in the house at their ravenous mercy, you see.”
    Betsy, it seemed, had an overly active imagination. They were well suited.
    “And they have more than one wife,” Betsy added. “Dozens of them, I’ve heard.”
    “That may be. But it has no bearing on my shoes. Mr. Wolfe is not an Oriental prince, of course, and I am not a member of a harem.”
    “Then what’s he done with your shoes?”
    Mr. Treadwell walked from the mews alley. Taliesin spoke to him, impossible to hear through the glass, then mounted and rode away.
    Eleanor flexed her toes in her dress slippers. “I shall have to ask him when he returns.” She’d no idea where he was going. He could not possibly be leaving her in this little fishing village with only a maid and coachman, not on the verge of nightfall.
    But on the moor she had asked him to leave her alone. Then, the challenge. Since then, she had taunted him into the frigid ocean, and when he’d gone to his knees in the sand before her and touched her like he should not have, she’d fled like a frightened girl.
    Mr. Treadwell entered the taproom. “Ma’am.” He touched the brim of his cap. Beneath it was a tangle of straw-colored hair. His face was long, and he wasn’t above twenty-five, despite his weathered skin. He turned to Betsy with a shy smile. “Good day, miss.”
    Betsy’s cheeks flared rusty pink. She looked down into her teacup.
    “Mr. Treadwell, where has Mr. Wolfe gone?”
    “He said he’s got a parcel to retrieve a distance aways, but he won’t be no more than a few hours.”
    “What sort of parcel?”
    “I shouldn’t be saying, ma’am. But he wouldn’t hear of me going and fetching it for him. I’d have done it too. Guinevere, you see, doesn’t mind being saddle rode by a good man every so often. Just like her namesake, I suppose.”
    Eleanor cracked a laugh. Then slammed her palm over her mouth.
    Betsy’s freckles became one large splotch of pink.
    “Beggin’ your pardon.” Mr. Treadwell’s cheeks had grown ruddy too. He twisted his cap between his hands. “There’s times when my tongue runs away from me.”
    “Do not fret, Mr. Treadwell. You’ve caused no trouble for me.” Queen Guinevere of legend had ridden the wrong man, Lancelot, despite how dangerous it had been. She’d done it simply because she wanted him and the temptation was too great to withstand.
    But Guinevere had